


Difficult

by clear_as_starlight



Category: Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Angst, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Introspection, M/M, Self-Doubt, fear of failure, poor Brendon is pretty messed up, the pairings aren't the focus of the story but they're there, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 02:38:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17572709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clear_as_starlight/pseuds/clear_as_starlight
Summary: Brendon Urie likes things when they are difficult. When things are difficult, there is no chance of failure, because there’s no chance of success. When things are difficult, you can write them off even as you’re attempting them, like this is problematic, this is impossible, if it doesn’t work out it’s because it was difficult and not because I failed.Failure is the empty pit in Brendon’s stomach that makes him wake each morning with a softly deceptive feeling of apprehension cocooning him, and an icy shower of dread dripping a pattern inside his skull.





	Difficult

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so I wrote this quite a while ago, back before Dallon left to start his amazing band, before Pray for the Wicked, and before Brendon came out as pansexual. Obvs not implying anything that happens in this fic is true, and respect to all real life relationships and people :) This was more me projecting my own fears and worries onto characters (sorry Brendon, sorry Dallon) and getting all angsty in what turned out to be a longer fic than I expected. Hopefully it’s not too rant-y :)

**Difficult**

**ˈdɪfɪk(ə)lt/**

**needing much effort or skill to accomplish, deal with, or understand**

Brendon Urie likes things when they are _difficult._ When things are difficult, there is no chance of failure, because there’s no chance of success. When things are difficult, you can write them off even as you’re attempting them, like _this is problematic, this is impossible, if it doesn’t work out it’s because it was_ difficult _and not because I failed_.

See, failure is something Brendon can't take. Everyone fails, sure, but not Brendon, because Brendon only attempts things that are difficult, _impossible_ , so then it’s not on him if it falls short.

Failure is the empty pit in Brendon’s stomach that reminds him he’s just as human as everyone else, just as _fallible_ as everyone else on this fucked up planet; the pit that makes him wake each morning with a softly deceptive feeling of apprehension cocooning him, and an icy shower of dread dripping a pattern inside his skull.

That same pit keeps him constantly moving, talking, singing, _annoying_ during the day and terrifyingly, achingly awake at night, makes his skin itch and his breath catch and his hands clench and his nails cut and his eyes tear until he wants to rip his way out of his body, the solid shape that ties all his thoughts and emotions and _fears_ into one place, contains them in a form far too small to house them, makes him feel as though he’s trapped, as though his skin is stretched too thin over his bones, as though everything is bursting to get out so desperately that he might suddenly start leaking words instead of sweat, blood instead of words, knives instead of blood until he just wants _out out out out out_.

So, Brendon only tries what is difficult because then, it can’t possibly go wrong because he _failed_. And if he didn’t fail, he can pretend the pit doesn’t exist. Just for a little while.

Ryan was _difficult_. Ryan was about as difficult as they got. There was no chance of success and by extension, no chance of failure either.

There was just nothing.

Nothing means nothing to feed the pit, nothing means a slight relief from the clouds gathering at the edge of his vision, nothing means a pause in the promise of drowning rain, a downpour that gets closer every day his toe slips slightly from the ledge.

Brendon sampled Ryan and he was _impossible_ and Brendon pretends the misery and fear and aching sadness that made him want to plunge into the waiting dark was the uncertainty of what would happen to his band, and not because he lost something that was never his to lose in the first place.

Because, you know, losing is basically the same as failing, in the long run. Like, they’re synonyms really.

But Brendon can't think about that too long, because thinking about it opens floodgates that whisper _you’re just as broken and stupid and lost as everyone else_ and he can’t entertain that voice because who knows what happens when you invite your delusions to dinner.

They might shed their skins and that would be just the same as yanking your soul out your mouth until it wrapped around your throat and strangled your lies to death.

Brendon likes difficult things and difficult people so much he has even shaped himself as _difficult_.

One day, back when he was young and alone and more obviously broken so that the splintered pieces weren’t quite glued back correctly, he tried to escape his skin and realised shattered vases hold onto their shape more possessively than complete ones.

He also realised people don’t like to look at shattered vases too long, in case their gaze causes that one essential piece to crack.

People don’t like broken things; so much so that they always want to _fix_ them, glue them back together, hold them up until they become so set in their shape they can’t move even to explain that, hey, that piece shouldn’t got there and wait, why can't I choose whether I want fixing? People fix broken things until the broken thing can’t even remember its original shape.

People also don’t like difficult things.

It’s a different dislike.

People don’t want to _fix_ difficult things; they want to dismiss them. If something is difficult, people don’t make themselves feel good by trying to fix it, they only get fed up, and yell, and leave it alone because it reminds them they’re not perfect either.

Brendon realised if he shaped himself as _difficult_ he could give people the easy out he was always seeking for himself.

Example: Brendon Urie is _difficult_ to work with. The band as it started was never going to work because Brendon is _difficult_ and Ryan is _difficult_ and Spencer is glue trying to fix vases missing pieces they won’t acknowledge they’re missing.

Example: Brendon Urie is _difficult_ so Ryan and Jon were always going to quit the band. No point evading the inevitable.

Example: Brendon Urie is _difficult_ so of course he wouldn’t realise Spencer is losing pieces just as quickly as he’s ignoring them.

Example: Brendon Urie is _difficult_ so there’s no way Ian would have stayed; Brendon Urie is difficult so there’s no way Dallon would last as a full member; Brendon Urie is difficult so he was always going to want to work on this record by himself; he’s difficult and loud and in your face; he’s difficult  and hyper energetic because he refuses to take meds (and not because meds trap him until he wants to scratch his skin off in burning shreds); he’s difficult to agree with because he always says the opposite of what he should; he’s difficult to love so everyone bets on how long Sarah will be able to withstand his egotism; he’s difficult, difficult, _difficult_ and because he’s difficult there’s _absolutely nothing we can do_.

He’s difficult, so we can’t possibly fail, because there’s no chance of success.

Being difficult keeps people away, which means no one looks too closely into the flailing mess so clearly in front of them. Brendon has moulded himself into this shape so well, he forgets what the shatter pattern underneath looks like.

People say he seems not to _care_. He’ll walk around shooting his mouth off, he’ll walk around almost completely naked, baring all.

Brendon cares _too much_.

He shoots his mouth off because he needs to be heard before the pit swallows him whole; he walks around almost naked because that way, he seems like he is open, that he has nothing to hide, that _difficult_ is indeed who he is, and not who he is because he will drown otherwise.

Certainly, Brendon is surprised Sarah hasn’t left yet. Sometimes, he thinks it’s because, even when they argue, even when he says the most awful, terrible things because he is _difficult_ and not because awful, terrible things come out louder to disguise truths he can’t possibly tell, she can _see_.

Sometimes Brendon thinks he’ll have to leave Sarah. Difficult is built with such precision, when she looks at him with those eyes that say _I can see through you right to the ugly pit rotting you from the inside, let me help_ , he can feel the terror pressing right up against his skin, yelling _she sees me let me free_ , but he _can’t_ because she might not _love_ him anymore and then he will have _failed_ to keep the one thing that doesn’t see him as _difficult_ and the monsters gnaw his skin from the inside until he thinks he might just collapse inwards, might just dig his nails right through to his treacherous heart, the heart that loves and hates so much it _hurts_ , and then at least it might finally _stop_.

He might have to leave the one thing that loves him before it realises how poisoned he is; might have to give up the one thing that can fill the pit before the pit opens and swallows him whole.

He’s a walking contradiction.

He doesn’t know who he is anymore.

Brendon Urie is Panic! At the disco; Brendon Urie is Grammy Nominated; Brendon Urie is married to Sarah; Brendon Urie is successful; Brendon Urie is loud, and confident, and fun, and talented, and sexy, and _difficult_.

Brendon Urie is all these things, but he isn’t Brendon Urie anymore.

He’s the broken jar stuck at the back of the cupboard, dragged to the front by accident with a label that doesn’t belong slapped on.

He thinks this is why he became such good friends with Pete Wentz.

Pete Wentz is also _difficult_.

But where Brendon Urie is difficult to keep people away, to protect them from himself, to protect himself from himself, Pete Wentz is difficult in order to lock himself away, Pete Wentz is an asshole to stop people noticing the darkness behind his eyes, the heart that wants but can’t have because it manages to ruin whatever it touches.

Or at least, he was like that.

Brendon knows he’s still Pete, of course. But…he’s not difficult anymore. Well he is, but only in the usual way everyone is. He’s still dark, sometimes, but his shattered vase is mending, and Brendon wants to ask him how he did it, but he can’t, because that would be acknowledging the _difficultness_ isn’t true, and that is exactly what the pit wants.

Brendon knows Pete understands this without words; but then they have an argument (who even knows about what, something stupid) and Pete tells Brendon to stop being _difficult_ and there it is again, that word, the word Pete used to recognise as the same defence he held so close so long, and suddenly it’s not Pete’s word anymore, and Brendon’s difficultness has become so complete Pete can’t read through it anymore and in that moment Brendon feels the claws holding his heart in place contract at the same time a smile darts across his face at Pete’s fury, proving Pete’s point, and Brendon realises his one defence has become another layer of cages he has lost the key to.

If playing difficult meant he couldn’t fail, and then he fails at playing difficult, what is he?

Brendon stares in a mirror backstage before a big sold out show and his face stares back. He realises the face could belong to anyone; it’s expressions and words and songs have become one with his layer of difficultness, so much so that it isn’t his anymore.

He thinks perhaps all the pieces he didn’t realise he was losing have finally fallen.

What is a vase called once it is broken for good? Dead? Vases are inanimate. They can’t die.

Brendon isn’t a vase, but he is splintered, his pieces scattered all over the world. He doesn’t even know what they look like; he doesn’t know where to start.

What do you call a person when they break for good? Difficult?

Useless.

Empty.

A pit.

That’s all he is. A pit of uncertainly, anger, fear, sadness, loneliness, dread, _despair._ The very thing he used to hold it off helped it swallow him whole.

He’s not difficult.

He’s _nothing_ and he has _failed_ and he just wants it to _stop._ Just _please, please let me go_.

Blood is a lot darker than you’d suppose.

Somewhere the crowd is chanting _Panic, Brendon, Panic, Brendon_ but he is neither of those things. He’s just another human, on this fucking shitty planet, that has failed.

Dallon Weekes is not difficult.

He is utterly impossible, but he is not difficult.

Once Brendon thought _impossible_ and _difficult_ were synonyms; they walked side by side, clutched hands tightly, and meant Ryan, and Brendon, and the whole fucking world.

They meant _the same_ and _without failure_ and they guaranteed a lifetime of false blackness to stuff the pit until it felt almost gone.

Well, as gone as anything only pretending to be invisible, but which you can still see every time you glance sideways in the mirror, can be.

But now _impossible_ means Dallon whilst _difficult_ means Brendon and their meanings are so far apart Brendon thinks he might scream until his lungs cave in.

Dallon is impossible because he is _Dallon_. He is impossible because no one can work that hard, or love that hard, or believe so tightly in the merits of the world, and exist.

Sure, Dallon sells himself as professionally sarcastic, but Brendon thinks to be sarcastic you need to recognise the darkness in things in contrast with the light; Brendon can't do this because _lightness_ is not a word that makes friends with _difficult._

Dallon’s other impossibility is this: Brendon walks into a dressing room once by accident and sees an off guard Dallon and he is _broken_. His cheeks are red and his hair is pulled and his arms are marked and his eyes hold a thousand sad stories Brendon never wants to hear. He is _not Dallon_ and yet he is _still Dallon_ and the terrible, terrible sadness shares a home with the light so that Dallon doesn’t hide, he just is. He is Dallon, both sorrow and optimism and utter, utter goodness and Brendon wants to know how to become this impossibility.

How can you hold so many feelings and dreams and thoughts and wishes and not break apart under the weight? How do you cry yourself to sleep (secretly) on a day that just isn’t working and then somehow remember how to smile when morning arrives?

How can you be a walking contradiction, an impossibility, and yet be the most beautifully human person Brendon has ever known?

How do you not need to _hide_? How do you not need to create a persona; whether _difficult_ or an _arse_ or a _partier_ or _the one with the good weed,_ or _the one with the good voice_? How do you just live and love as you, as Dallon, with no disguises, and not feel the pit rise up, take your hand and strangle you?

How can you be, you impossible, improbable creature?

So yes, Dallon is not difficult. Well—he can be. He can be so difficult that he and Brendon yell and punch and sulk and threaten—but he _isn’t difficult_. Or rather, difficult isn’t _him_. Difficult does not define him like it does Brendon, it’s a passing state of being, just like his anger, or sadness, or irritability. It’s not “Oh yes, he’s difficult,” it’s “Oh yes, he’s Dallon.”

Dallon is one of the only people Brendon has ever had in his band that is not _defined_. He just _is_. And Brendon loves him for it, and hates him for it, and envies him for it, but most of all he _wants_ it. He wants _Dallon_ and wants what Dallon _is_.

And Dallon is impossible, and improbable, and incredible, and Brendon knows he will never, ever, have him.

Because he is difficult, and Dallon is not, and Dallon is _happy_ , mostly, and Brendon is not, mostly, and also Dallon is Dallon but Brendon is…no one. Someone. A pretence, a make believe. He isn’t a thing; he’s an empty vase waiting to be filled by the right thing; which he thought was maybe Ryan, but never believed it.

When Brendon first meets Dallon, he thinks perhaps Dallon’s impossibility could be what fills him. But then there is Dallon’s greatest impossibility: he is a vase a broken as Brendon, and yet he lives as himself.

He doesn’t pretend what he is not, and still manages to be anyway.

Dallon cannot fix Brendon’s pit because you can't fix what will not be fixed.

And also, Dallon is straight.

So. You know.

And married.

So.

Like.

Not all his impossibilities are existential.

Just like.

Most of them.

Ha.

Sometimes Brendon thinks he’s crazy. Logically he knows he’s not; and he knows there’s no such thing as _crazy_. It’s just another easy way to label people and things too _difficult_ to fix; people and things who act differently and talk differently and live and breathe and think differently but hey, slapping a label on is a hell of a lot easier than trying to understand it and who is he to judge, when he’s coveted the label of _difficult_ his entire life until it’s so perfect it’s too perfect.

It’s so incredibly perfect it never cracks; never exposes the raw, bloody gashes underneath.

It doesn’t crack when he can’t give people an answer about his sexuality; one because why the fuck is it their business, two because he doesn’t _know_. How about that? Being _difficult_ means he’s never actually worked out what he is separate from what he wants to be.

So, he’s says he’s straight, but he’s dabbled, and people get annoyed because he has no definitive answer, always with the _labels_. He’s just being difficult again, and of course he is, because the disguise holds up, so why the fuck would that change?

It doesn’t crack when people start theorising about why Dallon left the official line up; one because why the fuck is it their business, two because he doesn’t _know_. Well, he does know officially, because Dallon wasn't “contributing creatively” anymore, and because he had a young family, and a band of his own he still wanted to work with, and all that. But under _officially_ and all its connotations and carefulness, he really doesn’t have a clue.

So, he starts work on what becomes _Death of Bachelor_ by himself and of course everyone says Dallon left because Brendon’s _difficult_ and that’s why everyone leaves, right? See? His perfect wall is so good, nobody ever realises that he isn’t always the catalyst. Ryan was _difficult_ and Jon was _weary_ and Spencer was _glue with no stick_ and Ian was _restless_ but of course it’s Brendon’s fault.

Of course.

Always.

It does crack though. One day it does. The walls shatter so completely he feels naked, like all his feelings and thoughts have become muscles and bones on a skeleton stripped of its skin.

Of everything in the whole fucking universe, it is Dallon that takes a sledgehammer to his _difficult_. He does it in the only way anyone ever could.

People always say Brendon is difficult. They always say _stop being difficult_ they always say _you’re so difficult_ they always cement _difficult_ as _Brendon_ like the words have intertwined to create barbs drawing blood through a curtain too difficult to pull back.

But they never ask _why_. Ever. Never ever.

And Brendon is sitting in the dressing room, staring down at his arms, his usual laughs and jokes and inappropriateness and movement utterly drained away as he traces the new scabs like they’re stitches keeping his thin, stretching skin intact, when Dallon walks in.

He normally knocks, but not today.

Brendon shoves his sleeves down and whirls his chair around, forcing the signature Brendon UrieTM smile onto his face.

Dallon only glares and crosses his arms. “We’re on in ten and Dan said he didn’t think you were ready at all.” He sweeps a hand around Brendon’s room indicating all the _not ready_ like its invisibleness is as clear as the clothing rack he smacks his knuckles on by accident.

Brendon shrugs. “I’m ready.”

Dallon’s eyebrows raise saying _yep, and all the not ready I just indicated is suddenly saying sure, Brendon’s ready; I don’t think so._

Brendon glares now. “Fuck you, Dallon.”

Dallon’s eyebrows stay right where they are. “No thanks,” he replies dryly.

Brendon clenches his fists. “I’m ready, Dallon, okay, so really, _fuck off_.”

Dallon’s eye brows lower now, until they’re back in a frown, like they’ve forgotten the usual resting place for eye brows is a little further above the eyes.

“Brendon,” he says, frustration so clear Brendon can almost see it rising off him in an angry dark mist, “ _Why_ do you always have to be so difficult?”

And, when suddenly faced with the _question_ rather than the _statement_ , like it’s something that should be considered thoroughly rather than taken as truth, Brendon finds rude bravado can't provide a satisfactory answer.

His fists unclench and he feels incredibly nauseous as he contemplates how Dallon has, not so much shattered, as completely ripped _difficult_ off like a band aid so easily, when it’s taken more than twenty-five years for anyone else to try.

He looks at Dallon sadly, defeated, deflated. “I don’t know.”

And Dallon blinks once. Twice. Turns around and closes the door, regardless of the pressing fact that their musical talents are required to be gifted to a room of screaming people in less than ten minutes.

He grabs a chair and folds his long legs into it, more gracefully than should be possible. He stares right at Brendon, hair flopping distractedly over his eyes.

“Then why be that way, when it’s so much easier to not?”

And there it is again, Dallon’s impossibility. _How_ is it easier to not be difficult, to not shield yourself from all the hurts? From that ugly pit inside?

“How?” Brendon’s voice is very small.

Dallon’s face is very confused, but his eyes already seem ahead of it, thinking on a subject clearly not easy to deconstruct.

“How what? What do you mean _how_? You just…don’t be a dick to everyone?”

Dallon’s answer is not very thoughtful, really, but again it looks like the thoughts in his eyes are ahead of his mouth and any second now everything will catch up and _click_.

Brendon just fiddles with a stray thread on his shirt. How can he explain it? How can he explain that for him, since _forever_ , success and failure have meant the same thing, that being _difficult_ and choosing _difficult_ and liking _difficult things_ has been the only protection from that dark pit devouring him in the morning and that sense of dread spitting him out and wringing him dry in the afternoon?

That making sure the different feelings are shut off from each other, the creation of Brendon UrieTM, the forgetting or perhaps never knowing who he was or what he wanted, is the only way to make sure he wakes up alive from his nightmares in the rumbling darkness of the tour bus? The only way to make sure how cracked and broken he is remains hidden?

In the end, though, he doesn’t need to say anything, because Dallon’s thoughts and mouth and brain have finally caught up with what his eyes knew all along.

“You’re afraid,” he breathes out softly.

And Brendon’s eyes spring wide, and his fingers still, and he feels like he might fall off his chair into the waiting darkness, because Dallon is right. Dallon is _right_.

That is what the pit is, it is _fear_. Fear that he will never be good enough, fear that no one will ever love him, or that those who do will figure out how awful he is and hate him, fear that if he fails he is just as meaningless as everyone else on the planet, fear that people will always leave him, so he drives them to leave before they can choose to, fear—fear of _everything_. Fear of being _human_ and all the hurts that follow.

“It is, isn’t it?” Dallon’s eyes are sad now. “ _That’s_ why you always act so difficult.”

And there it is again.

Dallon is mercilessly slaughtering _difficult_ until it lies in bloody shreds. He is separating _Brendon is difficult_ into Brendon _acts_ difficult and he has found out; he has smashed the illusion. Brendon is not difficult, he cultivates difficult like a shield.

“I…” Brendon, who always has all the words, suddenly has none, like he’s sacrificed them to Dallon in a bid to have him free him. “I don’t know.”

Dallon leans forward and places a hand on Brendon’s knee. He shakes it a little. His hand feels warm through the leather, and comforting.

“Well, I do. I _know_ Bren. But you can’t spend your whole life hiding behind a shield, believe me.” He sounds slightly bitter, like he knows this first hand, and sometimes Brendon forgets Dallon is almost six years older than him.

Brendon finds he has to look away. “But…it’s easier. Because then you can't fail. If everything is always difficult all the time, if it doesn’t work, it’s not your _fault_.”

And this is the first-time Brendon’s really said it, really said _why_ he acts difficult.

Dallon thinks on this a minute, ignores the sound of his phone going off—probably Dan saying _where the fuck are you_ —because this needs to be said now, before the bubble around this room breaks and the topic can't be raised again until Brendon fucking destroys himself.

“Sure, when you put it that way, it _sounds_ easier. But Bren, you little idiot—” here Brendon interjects—“Just because you’re a bloody giant”—but Dallon waves him off—“if failure is never your fault, then success never belongs to you either and that’s bullshit. What is this band, if not a testament to your success? Don’t tell me it’s all bloody difficult things working out, because it’s not. You’ve worked so hard for this Bren.”

Brendon supposes that’s true but—

Dallon shuffles his chair a little closer, so he’s staring Brendon straight in the face. “Brendon Boyd Urie. You listen here. That pit in your stomach—” and how can he know this? The alarm must show on his face, because Dallon laughs quietly, sorrowfully, bitterly. “That pit in your stomach, I get. Trust me, I bloody well get it.”

And Brendon remembers the impossibility of Dallon, tears in his eyes and marks on his skin, in a moment Brendon was never meant to see, and he knows Dallon knows.

“But, Brendon, that pit is there because you never let anything in. You shove everything into little compartments, all your feelings and hopes and ideas, lock them down so tight you don’t know them anymore, and they don’t know each other, and you don’t even know yourself, and that’s when you become afraid, because if you don’t know yourself, how can anybody else possibly know you, or see past the spikes? And _that’s_ how you feed that damn fear, not by letting everything in, but by shutting it all out. People are made to feel, Brendon. That’s what people _are_. You feel shattered and cold and broken and _difficult_ not because you can’t contain all those feelings and fears, but because you can, and won’t.”

Dallon stops talking so abruptly it’s like he was enchanted to stop, and the room does feel a bit like that, like they’re under some spell that no one can get in or out of, and if they leave, it will break, and the pit will come back, because Brendon realises it is _gone_.

Dallon has _obliterated it_.

And sure, it will probably come back, because walls are built to last, and Brendon will need to take this one down piece by piece to expose the shattered fear underneath, and then rebuild that too. And maybe he’ll always be a little broken but, what person in this godforsaken world isn’t broken just a little? Isn’t that our beauty? That we break, and fear, and hate, and lose, and _live_?

Dallon’s phone rings out again and he goes to lift his hand from Brendon’s knee, and he goes to draw back a little, and Brendon can’t have the spell broken yet, he isn’t ready to leave this room and pretend nothing has changed, when _everything_ has changed, so he desperately places his hand over Dallon’s and presses down, trapping it.

Dallon drops his phone in surprise and the sound of it hitting the carpeted floor with a muffled _thump_ almost sounds as tense as Brendon’s heartbeat.

There is a beat of silence that would be awkward, except that nothing about this is awkward, bar maybe the slight colour in Dallon’s cheeks, like he’s been bathed softly in the red light from a particularly bloody sunrise.

“Brendon, what—?”

Brendon is shaking. This is not difficult, it’s _impossible_ and he could fail, sure, but for once in his life, perhaps the first time in his life, he wants to _live,_ to forget about the pit and just _go_.

So, he surges forward and connects his mouth to Dallon’s; the lips that just broke him down and started to rebuild him too.

Dallon makes a startled squeak and pulls back a little, Brendon chasing his lips as they withdraw. “Brendon…”

Brendon swallows. This is why he is difficult, because he is so, so, so afraid of failure, and perhaps that is easier than this after all.

Then Dallon’s hands touch his hair softly, and a slight breath leaves his lips, shuddering across Brendon’s own, and maybe it’s the magic of the room, and of course this is fucking doomed as soon as they leave this room, but for now, who fucking cares.

So, Brendon leans forward again, and this time Dallon meets him, and they connect, and it’s like Brendon never knew the world, but now he does, and it’s _beautiful_. It’s light and sound and breathe and lightness; it’s lips, and tongue, and awkward teeth; it’s heat and hair and hands and moans; it’s forgetting about what exists outside; it’s Dallon pulling him closer and kissing down his neck; it’s Brendon digging his fingers into Dallon’s skin and hearing his breathy groans.

It’s impossible, of course it is, it’s beautifully _impossible._

It’s the phone ringing again and a panting Dallon trying to explain to a swearing Dan that yes, they’re coming, coming, hang on.

It’s both of them scrambling to find misplaced pieces of clothing, smoothing hair, fixing smeared stage make up.

It’s both of them trying to squash down the guilt because they’re both taken.

It’s Brendon trying to stay straight faced when Zack examines him before they take the stage, and quirks an eyebrow, pointing at the hickey not quite hidden.

It’s Brendon blushing and throwing out his net for any kind of excuse, which Zack will of course see right through, and pretend not to.

It’s the extra heat in Dallon’s eyes when they meet gazes on stage; and the sneaky kisses back stage, and the-not-at-all suspicious staying behind to sleep when the rest of the band go out partying.

It’s the impossibility of it all and the erasure of an armour Brendon has perfected his entire life.

It’s knowing that you need failure to succeed, and knowing that Dallon is the kind of thing Brendon wants, just this once, to succeed at.

It’s knowing that he could fail, that, yeah, this will fail, and it will backfire on both of them, and it will probably cause hurt on all sides, and that as hard as they try, there might not be any happy ending, or that if there is, it will be hard fought for, and with many casualties lying bleeding in the trampled feelings.

It’s knowing that yeah, he could fail, but he could also live so damn much and you know what?

That is what Dallon’s impossibility is all about. He fails and succeeds and lives and feels and doesn’t try to protect himself from the hurts of the world because he is _human_ and Brendon is _human_ and being broken and shattered and stepped on and kicked by this fucking world, and then mended by those you love again and again is what being human is all about.

Brendon Urie is not _difficult_.

Dallon Weekes is not _impossible_.

They just _are_.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading that emotional dump


End file.
